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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003263">The City of Lights</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro'>Orockthro</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Queen's Gambit (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Female-Centric, Implied one-sided Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov, Paris (City), Post-Canon, references to past Benny Watts/Beth Harmon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:40:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,554</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cleo lights her cigarette and opens Beth’s suitcase on the bed. She pulls out a dress and lays it down, running a long fingernail across the weave. “This one’s pretty.” <br/>Beth flicks her eyes from the dress to Cleo. This is that moment in chess she loves so very much, the pivotal move. The single push of a pawn that changes the direction of the whole game, meaningless without the context of the board, of the players, of the direction of the game. <br/>She stands before Cleo in her silk slip and near to shivering.<br/>She pushes a pawn of her own. “Well. Go on. Put it on me.”</p>
<p>(Or, the year is 1970 and Beth is in Paris again. And she's not the only one.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cleo/Beth Harmon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>103</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The City of Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This series snatched me and I let it. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Beth Harmon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth looks up as she checks into her hotel, two days before the Paris Invitational begins, and smiles a bit out of habit, because there are always cameras everywhere. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ten months after Moscow and she’s back in the city of lights. Only it’s 1970 now, the 60s have died, and the world already feels a little bit different. Even in Paris, the lights feel a little less bright. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Beth looks up it isn’t a reporter with a pad of paper calling her name out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s Cleo.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Smiling, mysterious Cleo. Her hair is the same; dark bob cut perfectly, eyes done up dark and smokey, a cigarette hanging between her lips, leaning against one of the lobby pillars. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth licks her own lips. “I can’t come out, Cleo.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes, yes, Benny told me you’re all cleaned up now. Sober. All that.” She’s got the cigarette in her hands now. It’s unlit, like a promise of more. “Don’t come out then. Come up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You have a room?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo smiles. “You do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They go up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo lights her cigarette and opens Beth’s suitcase on the bed. She pulls out a dress and lays it down, running a long fingernail across the weave. “This one’s pretty.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is pretty; one of Beth’s favorites. It’s bright blue and makes her hair glow. She bought it last time she was in New York and it cost a small fortune. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Show me?” Cleo asks, and leans back on the bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth flicks her eyes from the dress to Cleo. This is that moment in chess she loves so very much, the pivotal move. The single push of a pawn that changes the direction of the whole game, meaningless without the context of the board, of the players, of the direction of the game. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She kicks off her shoes and closes the room’s curtains. It’s a nice room. Alma would have liked it. A nice sized bed, too. Cleo leans back, smoking slowly, and watches her as she undresses down to her slip. She lets her current dress-- a brown wool dress she likes for traveling, although a few years out of fashion now-- pool around her stocking feet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She stands before Cleo, in the silk slip and near to shivering.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well. Go on. Put it on me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pushes a pawn of her own. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo smiles, sucks in a breath, and blows out smoke in tendrils. Only Cleo could make smoking look delicate. She leans over, taps out her cigarette on the ashtray on the table, and climbs off the bed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The last time I saw you, you were about to be defeated by that Russian fellow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I remember.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo runs a full hand down the dress on the bed and then slowly, with the aching precision of a model with years of experience under her belt (or, stockings, as it were) slips forward into Beth’s space, making her shiver.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Step forward,” Cleo commands, and Beth steps into the dress. Cleo lifts it, moves behind her, and Beth can feel her breath on her neck. Warm puffs. She smells like cigarettes, of course. But also perfume. And a little bit of wine. Beth forces away the pull of one intoxication and focuses on another, as Cleo’s fingers dance across her shoulder blades as she does up the buttons down the back. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands tug the dress into place at her waist, and then linger there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Behind her still, now playing with the delicate hairs at the back of Beth’s neck, she says, “Do you remember what else happened, before you let that man beat you at your little game?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The shiver that runs down Beth’s spine is visible and Cleo laughs behind her and gives her a little push.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Spin for me,” she says, and Beth, still in her stocking feet, twirls across the hotel room carpet, drunk on Cleo’s voice and the haze of her smokey dark eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I remember this,” Beth says, and half dizzy from spinning, steps forward, presses up on her toes to meet Cleo’s high-heeled height, and kisses her. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo kisses back and they enjoy one another’s mouths for lovely long minutes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth is the one who breaks it off. Pulls back and laughs in a deep breath. “God, did you know that before you, the first orgasm I had was with Benny Watts?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo kicks off her shoes and flops down on the bed, reaching for her cigarette again. Beth tosses her the packet of matches in her purse. “What is about Benny, hm? That had both of us infatuated with him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It was just once.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, I know,” Cleo says, and takes a long drag off the remainder of her cigarette. “You only love your Russian.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth looks at Cleo sharply. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The last time we spoke I was in love with Townes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm, the gay one.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Shut up.” Beth strips out of the dress again, throws it into the open suitcase  with little care for wrinkling it, and flops into the stupidly overstuffed chair in the corner of the room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s alright,” Cleo is saying, still flat on her back in her black dress. “I like sharing. It’s very French, you know. And we are in the city of love. Will your Russian be here?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo smiles and climbs down from the bed again, but this time keeps the cigarette in her mouth, puffing on it absently. She settles on the thick carpet at Beth’s feet and reaches a hand out under Beth’s slip to pull off her stockings, rolling each one down her legs and off her feet. Touching, as she goes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth steals the cigarette from her lips. There’s only two drags left, but she takes them and smiles as she snubs it out. “Kiss me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo grins, and it’s a lovely thing. The smile splits the nihilistic Parisian veneer she’s built up, the one that Beth is entranced by but knows is just another dress to put on, another layer to peel off. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Would you command your Borgov like that?” but then Cleo is kissing her and Beth can’t snap back, can’t say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“he’s married,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> or, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“he’s twice my age,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> or,</span>
  <em>
    <span> “I’ve never even had a proper conversation with him.” </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As she’s enjoying Cleo kissing her neck she wonders why the thought,</span>
  <em>
    <span> “I don’t want to,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> doesn’t enter her mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And as Cleo leads her to the bed, shoves her suitcase off onto the floor, and teases her slip up past her waist, Beth feels a shiver of something new. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo pauses, one hand on the top of Beth’s thigh, the other teasing higher. “Yes?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo doesn’t get it, just laughs a little, and then kisses up the path her hands started, and then Beth doesn’t think about anything beyond the soft touches, soft sounds, soft feelings, and then the hot rushing joy of sex. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spend the evening like that. Enjoying one another and drawing a bath. This time Beth manages to avoid ending up in it fully dressed. They trade orgasms and more kisses and finally they smoke on the bed. Cleo is naked and Beth is in the hotel dressing gown. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you really sober now, like Benny says?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Pretty much.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.” There’s so much to say, but also nothing to say. Cleo still dances in that world, and Beth doesn’t, and there will always be a disconnect now. But that’s something Beth is used to. She is always in a different world, it seems. It’s starting to feel lonely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo must sense her maudlin mood. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If he’s not here at this tournament, where is your Russian, then?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She shrugs. “I don’t keep track of him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Liar.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth tips her head back on the pillows and stares at the ceiling. Imagining her chessboard is so second nature she finds herself running moves absently. Her little dominion of control. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s defecting. Townes knows things and he told me.” A knight advances, a scant pawn providing cover. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To?” The bishop threatens, but it’s for naught. The rook takes the opposing queen, and checkmate is in two moves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth rolls her head over on the pillow. Cleo is so beautiful. The life in her that captivated Beth back in New York hasn’t diminished at all. She’s sex tousled and her hair is enchantingly splayed around her head in a black halo. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To France.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cleo laughs like music. “Ah, see? I told you sharing is very French.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beth wins the tournament. Her picture is taken a dozen times, and she smiles and poses with chess sets and does all the usual things. It feels perfunctory and lonely, but it pays enough to cover the trip and enough after that to cover the loss of selling the house. She’ll have a few months’ living expenses when she goes back to the United States before she’ll have to play more or write a book. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She smiles as a flash bulb goes off. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If </span>
  </em>
  <span>she goes back to the United States.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps she’ll stay in Paris for a little bit. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On a whim and with a thrill she hasn’t felt since Moscow, she pens a postcard. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pawn to E4.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She signs it and, after a moment’s hesitation, lists her hotel and room number alongside her name. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your move.”</span>
</p>
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